“讨论”一词在英语中有多种含义。然而,在学术写作中,讨论则专指文章中的“Discussion"部分。它一般包含两方面的内容:讨论结果的意义并根据结果得出结论。这句话说上去很简单,但是亲身写过文章的都知道,讨论部分往往是整个论文构成要素中最复杂的部分。讨论通常以“结果陈述”或“重要发现”为中心,由于结果通常不止一个,所以讨论部分通常被组织成一系列的语句板块,写起来也是极其耗费心力的。今天我们将列出这些板块中最常见的元素,以及通常与它们相关的一些术语,帮助大家理顺讨论部分的书写思路,关键是总结一下书写的套路。
在开始书写讨论部分之前,我们需要端正一个态度。初写者经常会犯的一个错误就是:在表述建议性和暗示性的语句时,所用的语言应该是试探性的,且极其谨慎的。语气过强的讨论内容,往往会引发读者,特别是editor和reviewer的反感。例如:千万不要用类似 definitely、must表示“肯定”,要换成might、could,同时多用些诸如imply,suggest这类语气较弱的动词。下面我们来详细跟大家讲讲具体的语句和用此,帮大家解决Discussion这个老大难问题。
01
Providing background information-
reference to literature
提供背景信息,关联已有文献
1Several reports have shown that …
2As mentioned in the literature review, …
3Prior studies that have noted the importance of …
4Very little was found in the literature on the question of …
5Previous studies evaluating X observed inconsistent results on whether …
6A strong relationship between X and Y has been reported in the literature.
7In reviewing the literature, no data was found on the association between X and Y.
02
Providing background information-
Reference to the question
提供背景信息,关联研究主题
1The third question in this research was …
2An initial objective of the project was to identify …
3The first question in this study sought to determine …
4It was hypothesised that participants with a history of …
5The present study was designed to determine the effect of …
6With respect to the first research question, it was found that …
7This study set out with the aim of assessing the importance of X in …
03
Restating the results
再次陈述结果
1One interesting finding is …
2The current study found that …
3Another important finding was that …
4The most interesting finding was that …
5In this study, Xs were found to cause …
6The results of this study show/indicate that …
7On the question of X, this study found that …
8This experiment did not detect any evidence for …
9The most important clinically relevant finding was …
10
11X provided the largest set of significant clusters of …
12It is interesting to note that in all seven cases of this study …
13The most obvious finding to emerge from the analysis is that …
14In the current study, comparing X with Y showed that the mean degree of …
15The results of this study did not show that …/did not show any significant increase in …
04
Indicating an unexpected outcome
暗述不合预期的结果
1Surprisingly, X was found to ….
2What is surprising is that ….
3One unanticipated finding was that ….
4Surprisingly, no differences were found in ….
5This finding was unexpected and suggests that ….
6It is somewhat surprising that no X was noted in this condition ….
7Contrary to expectations, this study did not find a significant difference between ….
8However, the observed difference between X and Y in this study was not significant.
9However, the ANOVA (one way) showed that these results were not statistically significant.
05
Comparing the result-
supporting previous findings
比较已发表的相符结果
1This study confirms that X is associated with …
2This finding was also reported by Smith et al. (1989).
3This finding is consistent with that of Smith (2000) who …
4Comparison of the findings with those of other studies confirms …
5This also accords with our earlier observations, which showed that …
6These results reflect those of Smith et al. (1992) who also found that …
7Increased activation in the X in this study corroborates these earlier findings.
8These results corroborate the findings of a great deal of the previous work in …
9This finding broadly supports the work of other studies in this area linking X with Y.
10In accordance with the present results, previous studies have demonstrated that …
11It is encouraging to compare this figure with that found by Jones (1993) who found that …
12Consistent with the literature, this research found that participants who reported using X also …
13This study supports evidence from previous observations (e.g. Smith, 2006; Jones et al., 2011).
14There are similarities between the attitudes expressed by X in this study and those described by …
These reuslts
1further support the idea of …
2confirm the association between …
3are consistent with data obtained in …
4match those observed in earlier studies.
5are in line with those of previous studies.
6are in agreement with those obtained by …
7are in accord with recent studies indicating that …
8seem to be consistent with other research which found …
9are consistent with those of Smith and Jones (2015) who …
10are in agreement with Smith’s (1999) findings which showed …
11support previous research into this brain area which links X and Y.
12corroborate the ideas of Smith and Jones (2008), who suggested that …
06
Comparing the result-
contradicting previous findings
比较已发表的相悖结果
1This study has been unable to demonstrate that …
2However, this result has not previously been described.
3This outcome is contrary to that of Smith et al. (2001) who found …
4This finding is contrary to previous studies which have suggested that …
5In contrast to earlier findings, however, no evidence of X was detected.
6The yields in this investigation were higher compared to those of other studies.
7However, the findings of the current study do not support the previous research.
8Smith et al. (1999) showed that … This differs from the findings presented here …
9The overall level was found to be 15%, lower than that of previously reported levels.
10It has been suggested that … (Smith et al., 2002). This does not appear to be the case.
11The levels observed in this investigation are far below those observed by Smith et al. (2007).
12These results differ from X’s 2003 estimate of Y, but they are broadly consistent with earlier …
07
Offering an explanation for the findings
解释结果发现
1A possible explanation for this might be that …
2Another possible explanation for this is that …
3This result may be explained by the fact that …
4There are, however, other possible explanations.
5These relationships may partly be explained by …
6There are several possible explanations for this result.
7A possible explanation for these results may be the lack of adequate …
8These differences can be explained in part by the proximity of X and Y.
9These factors may explain the relatively good correlation between X and Y.
10
11This inconsistency may be due to …
12These results are likely to be related to …
13This discrepancy could be attributed to …
14It seems possible that these results are due to …
15This rather contradictory result may be due to …
16The observed increase in X could be attributed to …
17It is difficult to explain this result, but it might be related to …
18
19The possible interference of X cannot be ruled out.
20It may be that these participants benefitted from …
21Differences between X and Y may have influenced …
22These possible sources of error could have affected …
23There are two likely causes for the differences between …
24The reason for this is not clear but it may have something to do with …
25The observed correlation between X and Y might be explained in this way: …
26Since this difference has not been found elsewhere it is probably not due to …
08
Advising cautious interpretation of the findings
细心阐述结果发现
1Another source of uncertainty is …
2A note of caution is due here since …
3These findings may be somewhat limited by …
4These findings cannot be extrapolated to all patients.
5These data must be interpreted with caution because …
6It could be argued that the positive results were due to …
7These results therefore need to be interpreted with caution.
8In observational studies, there is a potential for bias from …
9It is important to bear in mind the possible bias in these responses.
10Although exclusion of X did not …, these results should be interpreted with caution.
11However, with a small sample size, caution must be applied, as the findings might not be …
09
Suggesting general hypotheses
提出常规假设
1It is possible, therefore, that …
2It can thus be suggested that …
3In general, therefore, it seems that …
4It may be the case therefore that these variations …
5It is therefore likely that such connections exist between …
6It is possible to hypothesise that these conditions are less likely to occur in …
7
8These findings suggest that …
9According to these data, we can infer that …
10This observation may support the hypothesis that …
11Hence, it could conceivably be hypothesised that …
12The value of X suggests that a weak link may exist between …
13These results provide further support for the hypothesis that …
14Therefore, X could be a major factor, if not the only one, causing …
10
Noting implications of the findings
陈述重大意义
1It can therefore be assumed that the …
2An implication of this is the possibility that …
3The present study raises the possibility that …
4One of the issues that emerges from these findings is …
5Some of the issues emerging from this finding relate specifically to …
6
7These findings may help us to understand …
8This finding, while preliminary, suggests that .…
9This finding has important implications for developing …
10This observational study suggests that a diet rich in X may help prevent …
11These findings raise intriguing questions regarding the nature and extent of …
12This combination of findings provides some support for the conceptual premise that …
11
Commenting on the findings
点评结果发现
1These findings are rather disappointing.
2However, these results were not very encouraging.
3The test was successful as it was able to identify students who …
4The present results are significant in at least two major respects.
5The results of this study do not explain the occurrence of these adverse events.
6These findings will doubtless be much scrutinised, but there are some immediately dependable conclusions for …
12
Giving suggestions for future work
为未来研究提出建设意见
1This is an important issue for future research.
2Research questions that could be asked include …
3There are still many unanswered questions about …
4Several questions remain unanswered at present.
5Despite these promising results, questions remain.
6Further work is required to establish the viability of…
7Further research should be undertaken to investigate the …
8There is abundant room for further progress in determining …
9A further study with more focus on X is therefore suggested.
10Future studies on the current topic are therefore recommended.
11To develop a full picture of X, additional studies will be needed that …
12In future investigations, it might be possible to use a different X in which …
13Further studies, which take these variables into account, will need to be undertaken.
有了上面的“万能公式”,再也不用为写“讨论”头大了,赶快动手写起来吧。关注“科研猫”,获取更多写文技巧哦。
参考内容:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed
http://www.phrasebank.manchester.ac.uk/